Eurosmart forecasts 5.4 billion cards in 2009

The new forecast is:

This forecast represents a steep increase over previous ones: a year ago, Eurosmart forecasted total shipments for 2008 to amount to 4 755 million cards (cf. Smart Insights #07-46). Optimists will notice Eurosmart has always been conservative in its approach, and some will expect 2008 shipments to even pass the forecasts announced this November, and 2009 shipments to be well over 5.5 billion cards.

The industry organization also published, for the first time, an overview of 2008 contactless devices:

These figures exclude access control and ticketing. They mainly represent cards and key fobs used for Payment, Government ID and Transport applications.

For the year 2008, Eurosmart increased its forecast for Telecom microprocessor cards to reflect a strong year due to two main factors: a strong growth in the GSM subscribers base in emerging countries (with a net addition of users at a pace of 50,000 per hour), and a stronger role of the SIM as a Service platform in mature markets.   The association anticipates the net addition of users of 2/3GSM services will continue to grow and will pass the 4 billion mark mid-2009 (cf. SI #08-41). It will ensure a growth in SIM card volumes to an estimated figure of 3 600 million units.

In 2008, financial services continued to benefit from both the wide spread of EMV cards and the adoption, beyond the US, of contactless payment solutions (cards and key fobs). In 2008, contactless payment card grew 30% (from 60 to 80 million units). Eurosmart anticipates this trend will continue in 2009 and will be strengthened by the emergence of Mobile Services with a small portion of SIM cards becoming Secure Contactless-support cards.

The Public Sector delivered a strong growth in 2008 thanks mainly to Government and ID and despite some delays in some major Healthcare programs.  Eurosmart anticipates that despite the uncertainty of the economy, ePassport shipments should continue to grow to reach 70 million units in 2009.